Turning human poop into something usable isn’t a breeze, given that human intervention is required and humans aren’t up to a task like this, yet. So, Karl Linden, an environmental engineering professor at the University of Colorado, with a team of engineers, came up with the Sol-Char project, a system that uses solar energy to convert human poop into charcoal-like fertilizer pellets that can be used to enrich agricultural soil.
The system is hooked on to a toilet that singes human waste via fiber-optic cables, heated by solar concentrators on the roof. This leads to the production of a byproduct called biochar that can be used in soil. The project was funded by the Gates Foundation and could be the next best way to recycle human waste, instead of having dumped in the oceans.